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Without addressing everything you said in your email (I did carefully read the whole thing and I appreciate the points you made but I get a sense that you are currently writing from the perspective of someone who is on the bandwagon of climate change alarmism) I wanted to share this link with you:
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I thought I was clear about how I don't consider myself fit to judge how serious or non-serious climate change is or if it's going on at all. I simply said that saying "there is no evidence of climate change" is a bald-faced lie and that it's a sin to say so. Period. End of story. And as sins go, since it potentially impacts the lives of billions of people, it may be a very big sin indeed. It's ungodly to speak lies or to repeat them. Period. End of story.
I don't need to be told I'm on any "bandwagon." I'm just not going to blindly follow anybody who comes along arrogantly smirking, mocking, and plainly lying about some basic facts, including that "thousands of people agree" (when it's not true). I also try to be careful about blindly following, if I can help it, anybody where I can't come to grips with the basic facts of the issue, but unfortunately that is most things, which is where I struggle with humility.
Besides, I don't feel there's anything much I can do about climate change, apart from praying and listening and keeping my mouth shut when I have no idea what's going on (which is most of the time) so as not to add confusion for the people who actually might be able to understand it and make a difference (which I rather doubt to be possible at this late date anyway).
You might want to have another read on my original message. You may have mistaken tone for content.
I'm curious as to why you seem so interested in climate change in general and in downplaying its importance in particular, and in converting other people to this idea of "climate change denial" or whatever, if that is what you're playing at.
I'll be honest, I don't read or watch a lot of media about climate change. When I do, I examine what they're saying, and try to question and look for inconsistencies (some things Al Gore said didn't sit right, for example). I read about a "wet bulb event" in India, but I can't remember if it was a news item or fiction or what, but I was just thinking about that this morning. Your video started lying from the word "go," so I may watch the whole thing, I may not. It's offensive to be lied to, to be brow-beaten with "you're stupid if you don't see that what we're saying is true." Have you read any books that don't have "climate change hoax" in the title, and compared them to other ones? If you haven't, that might put you on a bandwagon, but I try to avoid such labels. A scientist buddy once said that there is no laboratory evidence of a mechanism where chloro-florocarbons destroy ozone, I don't know if it's true, but I've always kept that in the back of my mind, and so I don't know for a fact that CFCs destroy the ozone layer. I know for a fact that it is being destroyed, or has been severely damaged, presumably by something, since I have friends in New Zealand who tell me so. Some things you can't know for sure, even if you're working in the field. I'm like a farmer, "out standing in my field."
In the end, as a macromemetic engineer I can recognize that strong feeling and vigorous activism on one side automatically creates a comparable reaction on the other, having little or nothing to do with objective truth. Both sides may have a point, but that is not guaranteed.
You say you're a Christian--am I right?--so does that mean you believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny? Why or why not? This is actually a very serious philosophical question. How about Bigfoot? Extraterrestrials? Again, why or why not and to what extent? You could even get a bit mushier and ask if addiction is a thing, or mental illness?
I am perfectly willing to believe that atomic physicists, geologists, evolutionary microbiologists, climate scientists, cosmologists, astronomers, particle physicists, bankers, or economists may have gotten things wrong, and I would not be in the least surprised if any of them (especially particle physicists and cosmologists) retract or update any of their theories--that's how science works. I'm reluctant, however, to entertain the idea that all of them are deliberately manufacturing lies in order to deceive us all...or to somehow make money (except maybe the bankers). First off, none of the technology we enjoy every day would work if that were true. Second, I could say it's ridiculous on the face of it, but I'm not so trusting, I might be a cynic, and I like to think I'm at least a little bit open-minded--I just don't see any compelling evidence and it fails the Occam's Razor test. Thirdly, I'm simply not enough of an expert in most things to tell people what they should think about them, although I'm intelligent and well-educated enough to understand a great deal of what goes on in many domains, and to converse with experts as a layman. So fourthly, in terms of taking part in policy-level decision-making, I might consider myself to be qualified in the areas of modern language education and applied information system engineering and possibly game design, but that's about it. All that must sound terribly obvious, but there it is.
I guess I'd say if you say the Earth is flat, that cellphones are witchcraft, scientists are all the minions of Satan, and so on, and you're going to go live with the Amish, then I say more power to you. If you say all that and yet you use GPS, fly in airplanes, use electric power and computers, watch streaming media, and use metaphors like "another trip around the Sun," etc., then I'd have to say that you're a liar, a fool, a hypocrite, and a deceiver, and that's not just my "feeling" or "opinion" -- it's a fact. For what it's worth.
I don't have an axe to grind, per se. It's just that deliberate lies irritate me, and I'm also just concerned. At some point when healthy curiosity and questioning of basic reality turns into denial of it and orthodoxy to hysterical dogmatism, it starts to slide into a question of mental illness. I'm your friend, I'm concerned, you just got married and all of that, and I don't want to see things go all wrong. I also recognize that there's nothing I can really do about any of it. As one spiritual book that has helped millions terms it, the grouch and the brainstorm are the dubious luxuries of normal men, but they are not for us. I'm grateful every day that thanks to lithium, therapy, and a (sometimes) vigorous spiritual practice I'm no longer given over to the kinds of terrible flights of mania that I (and by extension the people close to me) used to suffer, but it still requires constant vigilance.
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Thanks for sending out that link to that climate change movie!
I'm as echatalogical literal-interpretationist suitcase-packed-and-ready-for-
I don't think I'm saying anything new when I say that not everything that supports our own point of view is true, or comes from an honorable place. Satan comes whispering sweet words in order to deceive us, or perhaps worse, to make us party to his deceit. And then to pass those deceptions along to others, Pharisee-like, compounds the ill, obviously. The Internet Web makes it a lot easier to promote the work of Satan since we just have to click and it uses no resources to spread the word to many others. I don’t know how much you believe in the Old Testament (the Torah), but there is a Ninth Commandment that says bearing false witness is a sin, and since God knows all that was and all that will be, I have faith that He foresaw the Internet Web. I can imagine, again, while I don’t presume to know the Mind of God, even though I pray for knowledge of His will in the narrow confines of my own life, Christ might’ve said something like “it is not the email he writes without forwarding that condemns a man, but what he forwards that condemns him,” if people of that time could've understood His words (probably not, and they probably would've had a tough time with quantum physics or computer technology, too...just sayin').
"A lie can make it all the way around the world while the truth is still putting on its boots."
-- Mark Twain
The claim that there are a bunch of scientists who signed this World Climate Declaration may be almost totally false, certainly very deceptive. I found this.
The first several people who spoke on the video said things like "there is no evidence for climate change," when this is simply false. I'm not saying that climate change is or is not anything -- I'm not God, obviously, so I don't know, neither am I a climate scientist, so I don't even know how to find out more than what we already know -- but I am saying that the first fifteen minutes contains a lot of lies. You can't just say the other side is completely wrong and obviously motivated by money when they have a lot of facts and reasonable arguments and evidence on their side. You have to speak to those truths -- you can't just deny them. That's lying. The other side may ultimately be wrong, but you can't just call them names and call yourself Godly or a respecter or truth.
I know you don't believe that the Earth has been around for this long, but xkcd published this comic that shows the progress of global temperature as far back as we know: xkcd: Earth Temperature Timeline The actual evidence shows that temperatures have taken an alarming and unprecedented sharp upward turn since the Industrial Revolution, and especially since the middle of the 20th Century. There are mountains of other evidence as well. This can't be denied with claims of "there is no evidence" because there absolutely is. It can't just be swept under the rug--it has to be explained, otherwise it's just lying, and we can both agree that that's a terrible sin on so many levels. Even if you don't believe the Earth has been around as far back as the evidence goes, even the evidence of living memory proves overwhelmingly that something big is going on.
My son has said to me things like "my generation is pretty much screwed [because of the climate and other things] but what are you gonna do?" You were planning on having kids, or am I wrong? They won't enjoy the same beauty, the food will not be as delicious, or as plentiful, and everything will be expensive, and they will sicken from the pollution and face the curse of storms and drought. Practically all the people who know what they're talking about agree on this. Everything we know points to this. As a scientist buddy of mine pointed out, consensus does not equal truth, but facts are facts. If you're the only man on Earth who believes in Jesus, it doesn't make you wrong, as I'm sure we can agree. Truth is truth. Anyway, God gave humankind dominion over the Earth, but I always thought that included a certain amount of responsibility, of husbandry and stewardship, not to ruin and and destroy God's beautiful creation as fast as we possibly can, but I guess that's another "interpretation"--some people think the world's going to end any day now, and are convinced it's right away, so anything goes, right? Maybe they're right--I don't pretend to know the Mind of God--but maybe they're just slaves to mannon, again, who knows? On that note, "God made man and woman, that the Earth might be peopled abundantly"--do you think we can tick that box now? Is enough enough?
The director Martin Durkin has put out a number of other corkers, including promoting genetic modifications, breast implants (they're safe and maybe even medically beneficial, apparently), and among other things, promoting Brexit.
I looked up a page that said something about how this Durkin guy, or somebody else related to the film, used to work for Shell, but I can't find the page now, so more on that later. See if you can find it. It might be this Clintel bunch. So if the film was produced by people who used to work in the oil industry, that's a pretty obvious connection, "follow the money" and so on, and "hypocrisy" in terms of people have obvious immediate financial interest in an issue saying other people who have no vested interest (other than the survival of humanity) are out for money. Anyway, I can't commit to that cuz I can't find the page (dang it!) but see if you can and I'll try to track it down again. Let me know!
I haven't had time to see which of the people who spoke from their rich, oaky, book-filled home libraries were actors and which were not. The thing that piece above said was that not everybody is a scientist (some of the names are deceased) and maybe only a couple are actually climate scientists. The thing that bothered me about all those "interviews" where some professorial, grandfatherly type laughs and says that "there is no evidence" and "it's all about money" and "climate change is ridiculous" and so on didn't have their names on the screen, like you would expect in a documentary like this. What's the value in interviewing somebody to support the premise of your movie where you don't put the person's name and their qualifications, i.e., how even putting them on camera helps make your point?
You can maybe ask around when you get back to Cyprus (an island) and see what everybody thinks about sea levels rising. Just in case climate change turns out to actually be kind of a real thing, and a hot button for them, you might want to lead with affected concern when asking, instead of coming out with "there's no such thing as climate change," you know, in case they're committed to the lie or something.
Like my relatives in California are super-conservative types, but they're pretty mad about how major insurance companies have left California and it's impossible for anybody to get insurance for their homes, except through the State at three times the cost for a lot less coverage. They might get kind of mad at anybody who said that all of the record fires in California and landslides and stuff (which is why the insurance companies all bailed) didn't happen or weren't due to climate change (it's the climate, it changed--a lot--so whatever the reason...it's happening). Again, probably best not to lead with "climate change isn't a thing" when meeting them. I don't have to tell you that you have to watch out with conservative types--if you disagree with them then you're just wrong, wrong, wrong, and deserve a punch in the nose--I'm just sayin'.
Apparently a lot of people have begun to oppose climate change measures based on this film. If climate change is a real thing, then, well, these people have been deliberately deceived and we are several steps closer to Armageddon as a result. Whether the world is being destroyed by dumb accident or just so some possibly Godless people can get a little richer, if it’s based on a lie then that’s a sin, and if it’s not God’s will that the world and all its people be destroyed, right now (is nuclear war God’s will—I don’t know, as I’ve said I don’t know the Mind of God) then that’s just hubris, sin, and blasphemy, a taking of the Lord’s name in vain.
As you know, I've travelled to the Holy Land, and there is quite literally zero evidence that Jesus existed to be found there, including where he was crucified and buried, except from the fact that the places he visited actually exist, of course. I found this disappointing. I was expecting to see all kinds of stuff, like I saw in Egypt, that proved people had been there thousands of years ago, putting my hands in the words on the walls, thinking, "There was a person standing here, thousands of years ago, carving these symbols into this wall, right where I'm standing now." I don't know if you believe the world actually existed that far back, but it was nonetheless a moving experience, and there was nothing like that about Jesus in Israel. I've been to Bethlehem, swum in the Sea of Galilee, walked the streets of Jerusalem, and so on, and I nevertheless felt I was walking where the Lord walked when I was doing it. The Romans were good record-keepers, and there is a little evidence, surprisingly thin, that Pontius Pilate existed, and that he was governor of Judea, but no evidence of things like Jesus' birth records, taxes, his sentencing to be crucified, and so on. Having said all that, it seems that historical and textual scholars are convinced that Jesus was a real historical figure, and they base this on things like the concordance of historical texts. We might think this a pretty thin reed, but they have their methods of establishing certainty, so if you believe the science, then Jesus lived. There is no evidence of the miracles, the walking on water, the water to wine, the healing the sick, the raising of the dead, the feeding of the multitudes with only a couple of packets of Wonder Bread and a few tins of tunafish (hold the mayo). Would you then disbelieve all of this because somebody told you "I went to the Holy Land" (supposedly) "and there's zero evidence of Jesus, it's all fake, and buy my book about it for $15.99"? Even though scholars say there's solid evidence that Jesus was a real person!
I get a lot of mileage out of the parable of Lazarus (not the one that Jesus raised from the dead) which tells us about the rich man who refused to believe climate change (no, wait, he refused to give alms to Lazarus, a beggar), who then went down to the burning flames of climate disaster (or was it Hell?) while Lazarus went to the bosom of Abraham. And the rich man cried out, in his misery and suffering to which he was eternally condemned, to Abraham that he send Lazarus back from the dead to testify to his kinsmen, that they might mend their ways and not suffer his selfsame fate. And Abraham rebuked him, saying, "If your kinsmen did not believe their own eyes of the evidence around them that God had made plain to them and the scientific evidence (or was it the miracles and the prophets?), then neither would they believe someone returning from the dead."
Anyway, feel free to forward this message along to your other readers. I'm not saying that there is or is not climate change, or how bad it is, but as Tucker Carlson is fond of saying, "I'm just asking questions." And if somebody's lying about small things (I don’t really care why they’re lying, frankly, because who knows anyway), I'm not saying that automatically means they're necessarily lying about the big stuff, too, but that it's foolish to just trust them for the big stuff. Hey, as it’s written, “unfaithful over a little, unfaithful over a lot,” am I right?
On Fri, Mar 22, 2024 at 9:20 AM
I just watched the first 16 minutes or so of this video and it was very revealing to me. Honestly I have never really trusted the alarmism over climate change. At one time I worked for an environmental company that asked me to help in calculating a mass balance of CO2 equivalent emissions of the world. I did a lot of data collection at that time. However, the alarm over the changing climate has never ringed true to me.Although I don't necessarily agree with some of the presumptions in this video of how old the earth is (I don't think anybody really knows how old it is, a lot of these rock formations have been shown to be able to form much quicker than the millions of years it is commonly understood it takes to form them) I do agree with the general conclusion that the alarmism over climate is unwarranted and is mostly driven by money and power.
Hello,This morning I sent out an email about climate change and I forgot to include the link (embarrassing).Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55n-Zdv_Bwc I only watched the first 10-20 minutes of this video but it was very good.Hope you have a great day,
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